Response to A God Of Small Things Essay

Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One” is a survey of world religions, comprising vital information on a vast array of different sets of belief. As someone who has never studied religion before, nor belongs to a particular faith, the variability within these religions is staggering. One might be satisfied to define religion as “how a person goes about believing in God,” but soon finds that even that definition has its holes. Thankfully, “God Is Not One” does an amazing job of cluing its reader into the nuances that are sometimes forgotten about the religions it approaches.

When People are Big and God is Small is written by Edward T. Welch. Welch is a professor of Practical Theology at Westminister Theological Seminary. In addition to being a professor he also serves as a counselor, a faculty member, and the director of counseling and academic dean at Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. Welch has added his expertise to the field of counseling and theology by contributing to multiple books. Welch’s contributions do not end with books but expands to writing more than ten articles for the Journal of Biblical Counseling and other periodicals. Welch earned a M.Div degree from Biblical Theological Seminary and a PhD in Counseling Psychology (Neuropsychology) from the University of Utah. Drawing from his education and experiences, Welch possesses plenty of reputable credentials to warrant attention and discussion to his book, When People are Big and God is Small.

Malala Yousafzai, 18 year old Nobel Prize winner and women’s rights activist, once exclaimed: “I raise up my voice- not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back”. The idea of speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves is extremely important when it comes to striving for change, so being able to express the needs of marginalized people is a great and awesome power. Yousafzai’s quote specifically connects to women’s rights, therefore it can be used to support the feminist movement seeing as she is advocating for the equality, in treatment and opportunity, of men and women. Feminist beliefs do not only apply to society, but to theology as well, seeing as the teachings of the bible are extremely influential in the day to day lives and values of religious people. The text that I chose to highlight this idea comes from Elizabeth A. Johnson’s book Quest for the Living God, chapter 5 ‘God Acting Womanish’ because it directly connects spirituality and feminism.

When People are Big and God is Small is written by Edward T. Welch. Welch is a professor of Practical Theology at Westminister Theological Seminary. In addition to being a professor, he also serves as a counselor, a faculty member, and the director of counseling and academic dean at Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. He has added his expertise to the field of counseling and theology by contributing to multiple books and writing more than ten articles for the Journal of Biblical Counseling and other periodicals. Welch earned an M.Div. degree from Biblical Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology (Neuropsychology) from the University of Utah. Drawing from his education and experiences, Welch possesses plenty of reputable credentials to warrant attention and discussion in his book, When People are Big and God is Small.

The books that we were required to read for Bible 115 class were Engaging God’s World – A Christian Vision Of Faith, Learning And Living by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and The Call – Finding And Fulfilling The Central Purpose For Your Life by Os Guinness. Both books offered very useful advice for today’s Christians. Engaging God’s World is written for students and will help them make sense of their education in a Christian perspective. Both authors use scripture, humor and common sense to validate their points.

in this world, and they are effects derived from a cause. The effects in turn

In this text titled GOD by Simon Blackburn, the protagonist agues of beliefs and other things. I am going to argue that there does not exist a super or godlike being who is all good, all knowing, all powerful. (40 words)

For my book review I chose The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. I have read this book before, but I wanted to go through again, summarize and analyze it. The purpose of this paper will be to summarize The Reason for God and analyze it’s writing style and arguments. The Reason for God defends knowledge of God and is naturally an apologetic work. Interestingly enough though, it reads more like a pastoral than it does an apologetic work.

The theological problem of evil is a problem that many philosophers have tried to solve. The problem is stated as, "if one believes that god is omnipotent and wholly good, why does evil still exist?" In this writing I will discuss the solutions/propositions of John L. Mackie in his work, "Evil and Omnipotence." I will do this in order to illustrate the concept of free will for understanding or resolving the problem, and to reveal how and why Mackie arrives at his conclusions.

This upheaval of identity can be seen in way the colonial trauma pervades the social, political, and cultural environment depicted in The God of Small Things. The social, political, and cultural environments in turn invade the lives of the characters of the novel. The Indian caste system and the love laws, for instance, are driving forces in one of the main conflicts of the novel. The caste system, which was existed in its present form in the novel due to the British colonists favoring certain castes above others, categorized groups of people within Indian society and classified some as superior to others, with the Untouchables being the lowest classification of the human. The love laws determined “who should be loved, and how. And how much” (Roy 33). These histories work in tandem to create the tragedy of Ammu, the twins’ mother, and Velutha’s, an Untouchable and friend to the twins, doomed relationship. Because of these socially constructed class structures, Ammu and Velutha’s relationship was forbidden and when Velutha’s father, Vellya, informs Mamacchi and Baby Kochamma of their relationship, they are completely horrified. Vellya’s relationship with the Ipe Family also somewhat parallels the colonized people’s relationship with the colonizer. Vellya, as an Untouchable, occupies a lower social position than the Ipe Family and sees them as superior. By informing the Mamacchi about her daughter and his son’s relationship, he maintains the social class structures and the

a) Christians believe many different things about God’s nature; due to the huge spectrum of Christians that there are. However, as a general rule they perceive God as being one of the following four things:

In his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens dissects and criticizes the various claims of religions and the tragic events that have been caused by various religions. The title of the book sums up the arguments of Hitchens in this book in the fact that he makes many arguments of why “religion poisons everything.” The majority of the chapters in this book discuss why he believes religion to be a manmade notion that has led to more trouble than anything else in the world. Most of his focus is on the three Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism but he does fit in criticism of other religions as well. The topics he chooses to discuss range from the sketchy origins of Mormonism to the

In Uys’ (1980) film, The God’s Must Be Crazy, a tribal community of South African Bushmen who live independently away from any contact with the outside world. When a Coke bottle is dropped from a plane, this “beautiful” and “useful” thing becomes a tool that is adopted into a variety of uses by the family (Uys, 1980). When the family begins to fight over the bottle, Xi, decides that although the bottle has been given to them by the gods, this now “evil thing” must be thrown off the edge of the world (Uys, 1980). The film then captures Xi’s experiences and interactions with other people and modern society as he sought to accomplish his task.

In The God of Small Things, Roy explores the idea of breaking boundaries by personifying the setting, focusing on everyday events, and manipulating the characters within society. The most predominant boundary in the novel remains the rigid social classes known as the caste system in Indian society. Roy gives each character a specific role to bring out the importance of the Love Laws, which set behavioral margins within the society.

The God of Small Things can be defined to have featured numerous themes and styles that allow authors to communicate with audiences effectively. It entails a story of a family that loves in Ayemenem, a town in Kerala India. This paper seeks to offer a detailed analysis of the above story in term of themes, styles, characters, and other elements that are featured by the authors. Some of the significant characters that are featured in the story include Sophie, Rahel, Ammu, and Cochin among other individuals (Arundhati, 15).